Why So Many Ancient Greeks?

Politics, Virtue, and Liberal Education in the Basic Program Curriculum

Date
-
Location
Online
Related
Pericles Gives the Funeral Speech (Perikles hält die Leichenrede), by painter Philipp von Foltz (1852)
Dec 03

About the Event

Why are there so many ancient Greeks in the curriculum? Come hear the Chair of the program, Kendall Sharp, argue that the Greeks are only as timeless as they are timely. They’re not for everyone. They are really only for students who live, or want to live, in a society of self-governing citizens. We cannot appreciate what is great about the ancient Greek texts in the curriculum, which comprise about half of the whole, unless we disentangle them from the very much later phenomenon of Western civilization. Once disentangled from the West, and restored to their historical context, the Greek texts in the curriculum emerge as the basis for a specifically liberal education, that is, an education fit for a free citizen in a free society.

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